by Jesse Wilson
NARBOSAURUS
A Kaiju Thriller
Jesse Wilson
Copyright 2017 by Jesse Wilson
Chapter One
“Sir, it’s coming over the ridge. What are your orders?” Xule screamed into his communicator as the rumbling footsteps increased in intensity.
“Hold your ground and set those ice blasters on full power; it’s not getting away this time,” the commander replied, tired of so many attempts to do this. Xule swallowed his fear, and turned his ice blaster up to full power with his dark green hand.
It was a dark, silver ship designed to reflect the environment around. It was sleek, curved, and had doubled-barreled cryonic cannons underneath the cockpit. The inside was just barely big enough for him, and it felt like being in a tin can more than a hunting ship.
“You heard him, men, this is going to be our day, so get ready,” Xule shouted to the men in the line. They waited intensely in their ice ship for their prey to show itself. The blue sun burned in the Yola sky, and besides the thunderous footsteps of the approaching beast, all was quiet in the forest of bright red leaves from the Yu trees. Anything with any basic instinct left had long since fled in terror.
Suddenly, the black, smooth head of the monster appeared over the ridge above the forest. Those deep yellow eyes reflected no sunlight. It was not the first time Xule had seen the nearly mythical beast, but every time he did, he couldn’t help but be afraid of it. Their words didn’t do it justice. The giant monster had many names and titles, but it was most well known as Narbosaurus, the Tyrant King of Yola.
“Steady, boys, don’t let it see you just yet. I’m right behind it,” the commander said into the communicator, steadying his men and breaking Xule’s train of thought, bringing him back to the mission at hand.
Commander Ulrix was in his Star Strider, trailing the beast and staying in line with the blue sun so he wasn’t spotted. The Nuridian had been on many hunting trips, and this was going to be his last one. This ship was the same color as the ice blasters but was retrofitted from a war scout ship into a hunting ship. It was a similar shape but much bigger than the blasters. It also had battle scars from front to back to show its history. Legendary prey for an equally impressive hunter was a perfect way to end his career. “Alright, you black hell spawn, time to take you off my to-do list,” Ulrix said to himself as he put his Strider in a dive. He fired two missiles at the beast’s back.
Narbosaurus felt the missiles hit him in between the double rows of long spikes on his back, and his flesh rippled on impact slightly, but there was no pain. He narrowed his yellow eyes and stopped to look around to see where it came from. It was the familiar tactics of the Nuridian hunting parties; cowardly at best. Narbosaurus stopped in his tracks and screamed in defiance of the hunters. It was tradition, if anything. The massive beast appeared to smile as he scanned the tree line below him, opened his maw, and opened fire with a bright green blast of energy.
“Everyone run,” Xule screamed. He pulled his ice blaster out of the way of the blast that shredded through those trees as if they were twigs. The Vortex engines whined in response but didn’t fail.
“Damn it, why did you fly up? Now you’re right in his—” The more experienced Ulrix knew the beast had planned it that way. He watched in horror as it unleashed another green blast at the ice blasters and watched as half of them were wiped out, as if they were mere insects hitting a windshield.
“Everyone fire at will.” Ulrix had no choice but to give the order. It was now or never as he watched the shattered remains of his men and their ship crash to the ground in flames.
Xule flew his hunting ship through the air and got the order. He fired his ice beams into the tyrant beast. Narbosaurus was large, so missing was difficult. The beams hit the monster in the side and a field of ice began to form there. The other ships began to do the same thing.
“Stay mobile, and make sure you don’t get hit with anything that might come off of it,” Ulrix cried out as he joined the battle. Xule knew what would happen if he was infected with the blood of this thing. Just another horror story that was all too real for him. He didn’t exactly feel safe in his flying metal coffin of a ship after seeing what it did to the others.
Ulrix was surprised to see that the monster was barely fighting back; instead, it was shrinking as the ice continued to build up around it. This was not how he figured this hunt would go, and a part of him didn’t like it. Things that were too easy never felt right to him.
“Keep it up; I am not entirely sure why this is going so easy, but press the advantage while we have it,” Ulrix said into his communicator as he watched the assault happen from the Star Strider.
Xule fired again, over and over again, with the rest of his crew. As its body froze, it continued to reduce its size. This wasn’t even difficult at all, and for the first time since arriving on the savage world of Yola, he smiled, because things were finally going right. Narbosaurus was quickly turning into a glacier, but that wicked smile never left its face as the ice covered its shrinking body.
“Smile all you want; whatever it is you’re planning, it’s not going to work out for you, slimy,” Xule said to it as he fired another volley of ice beams into the thing. Saying it and believing it were two different things, however.
Soon, the giant monster king was no more than a tall shadow, barely visible under a ton of ice.
“Sir, we got him. All the sensors report one hundred percent coverage,” Xule said, reporting the good news to his commander.
“Good. Meet me by the monster so we can take a few good holos and get out of here,” Ulrix replied to him.
“Will do, sir,” Xule replied, and the message spread through what remained of the fleet. It was time to land.
Ulrix landed his Strider close to the capture point, got out, and stepped onto the ice-covered ground that crackled under his weight. He walked toward the steaming block of ice and knocked on it once he got there.
“I finally got you. I thought you’d put up a better fight, personally,” the commander said with a smile. The other seven Nuridians came walking up to their prize. “Boys, this is going to make us all rich for the rest of our lives. With Narbosaurus captured, they’ll pay ten credits a piece to see it for sure,” Ulrix said with a smile.
“Too bad we can’t kill it, if it can be killed at all,” Xule suggested as he looked up at the ice block.
“True, but let’s take a holo with all of us together here so we can get back home,” Ulrix replied with a toothy smile as the others gathered in front of the wall of ice, the hint of a dark shadow showing through behind them.
Xule pushed a button on his wrist computer; a blue beam appeared and materialized a silver cube. Xule took it in his hand and threw the holo cube in front of them. The tiny silver box never hit the ground. It spun around and recorded the image of the eight remaining Nuridians and their prize.
“Dedicated to the thousands lost trying to catch the beast and the ones who died who helped do it today,” Ulrix said as it recorded them with a flash. The tiny silver box then flew back to Xule’s wrist computer.
“Sippy, save the holo-images, please,” he said to the computer as the silver box faded away in blue light.
“Alright, let’s pack up and get out of here,” Ulrix said with a smile. Despite what he had lost, it was worth it to him, but no one felt like celebrating.
The men got into their ice blasters and took off into the sky one at a time. Ulrix used his Strider’s front lasers and carefully cut around the beast. The giant shards of ice surrounding the thing fell to the ground, leaving him with a seven-foot-tall cylinder of ice on the ground. Ulrix then hovered his ship over the thing and fired the cables down. Immediately, they twisted around it to latch onto the prize a
nd lifted it up. The cables lead the monster into an opening hatch on the ship. Ulrix let out a sigh and flew up and out of Yola’s orbit. There in space was his main ship, just where he left it, safe and sound.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Ulrix said to himself quietly as he saw the long, red ship in the distance. His ship was a refitted Nuridian battle cruiser. It wasn’t anything special, but it was good enough for this job.
“Get the containment capsule ready; this thing is a block, but it’s making me nervous being out in the open like this,” Ulrix said, and it was true. The temperature in the holding cell was already starting to go up, and the ice was melting.
“One step ahead of you, boss. As soon as you get here, we’ll put it in cold storage. We are just waiting on you,” Xule replied to him.
“I’m three minutes out,” Ulrix said and increased his speed a little bit to make sure he was on time and to make sure that this monster in his ship didn’t get free.
It was the longest three minutes of the old hunter’s life, but he finally docked with his cruiser. The holding cell was lowered, and as promised, the frozen terror was locked into a containment capsule, temperature controlled to be constantly freezing as soon as it was sealed. Ulrix got out of his ship and looked at the silver tube containing the beast being pulled away to its holding chamber.
“Job well done, everyone. I’ve unlocked the Lierian wine to celebrate, and mourn our losses for tonight. Get that thing into a stasis chamber and take a break. I’ll be on the bridge,” the commander said, and there was a slight cheer from the crew.
“Well, don’t get too excited, you might break something,” Ulrix said quietly to himself as he walked away
To him, these were just paid crewmembers; they signed up for the job. They were old soldiers displaced after the Xeloid Wars and had nowhere else to go or nothing to do with the skills they had learned. He didn’t care about them for the most part. Each time he went out on a trip, he had a new crew. Xule had been his longest crewmember and the only one he actually cared about, despite most of his inexperience. They never served together back in the war, but their experiences were very similar. Now, with the greatest prize his race knew about secure in his cargo hold, all he had to do now was set up shop and get rich by showing off the frozen monster for all to see. It was going to be an easy life from here on out.
Ulrix slumped down into his captain’s chair and sighed. Despite plans for an easy and rich retirement plan, he still had to make it back home. As he started to plot a course back home, he felt a wave of exhaustion begin to creep up on him. It was a long way to go before he got home. Still not believing how easy it was to capture the monster, he was worried that it had some kind of alternate plan. Narbosaurus was an intelligent beast, after all; it had outsmarted generations of his kind before and was responsible for ending a few of them as well. The Xeloids turned a typical giant beast into a terrifying legend, a type of prey no Nuridian could truly resist. Now, the honor was all his. He would be immortalized for catching the uncatchable. Ulrix smiled as the last trace of the Xeloid race was finally contained. Frozen forever with any luck.
Chapter Two
The first four hours were uneventful. The crew spent the time in the galley, drinking the very non-intoxicating Lierian wine and sharing stories. Suddenly, the alarms were going off, sending the relaxed mood into chaos in a hurry.
“Everyone get to the general quarters. We have incoming, Dolrum Pirates are seventeen hundred eljects from us; we need to prepare for a fight,” Ulrix shouted into the intercom. Dolrum Pirates, as pirates went, tended to be the worst kind, as they were bio-liberation-inclined and hated hunters the most, and Nuridians even more. Xule and the others got to their stations, but no one wanted a space battle after living through the ordeal with the monster.
Ulrix was being hailed, and he answered.
“Captain Ulrix, let me get straight to the point. We know you have the Narbosaurus on board because we were watching you. My terms are simple. You let us take it without incident, and you and your crew can live,” she said on the screen.
Dolrums were not pleasant to look at, as they were insectoids.
“Nope, the beast is coming home with me. You can try and take it if you want, but I’ll give you a fight, bug,” Ulrix said and she retracted a little bit.
“Don’t you think it was a bit easy how you captured it? You’ve been hunting it for weeks, and now it just stands there and gets captured. Ulrix, one of your crew is infected. The beast wanted to get caught. You have to give it to us, so we can detect who is infected and save all of you,” she pleaded with him. First, they wanted to kill them, and now they wanted to save them. This wasn’t making any sense at all, but she had a point. Pride got in the way.
“There isn’t any infection, bug. I would have noticed it by now, and we scanned everyone before we left,” Ulrix replied to her. He had to be right, because if he wasn’t, it would mean disaster.
“Have it your way, lizard man; we have no choice but to kill you all,” she hissed and cut off communications.
“We have a fight coming. Prepare to defend yourselves,” Ulrix instructed his crew over the communication system.
The Dolrum ship melted out of the blackness of space and opened fire with bright purple beams that cut into the hull of Ulrix’s cruiser.
“Son of a snozbucket,” Xule cried out as the whole ship rocked and went black. One shot was all it took to disable the outgunned Nuridian cruiser.
“Snoz,” Ulrix said angrily as he smashed his fist against the arm of the chair. There was no way he was going to let his prize go to the bug people. He got up and ran to the doors, forced them open, and quickly made his way down to the holding chambers. He could hear the other ship beginning to dock with his own, and without power, there was nothing he could do to stop them from overriding his ship. Xule didn’t want the Dolrums to get the prize either, and much like his captain, he ran down to the holding dock.
Xule saw Ulrix at the containment capsule’s control pad pushing in codes and had a good idea of what was going on.
“Why are you trying to get rid of the monster? What do you plan to do?” Xule asked him in a hurry, just to confirm his thoughts.
“They can’t have my prize; they won’t kill us, but we can’t let them have it. I’m activating the capsule and sending it to the third planet of the Sol system,” he replied as he was punching in codes.
“Earth. But there isn’t anything on Earth but…oh, I get it,” Xule said, catching on quickly. He had been to Earth once before, and all that was there were primitive, but very large reptiles.
There is no intelligent life and the prey wasn’t worth hunting, so his species largely left it alone. There was only one thing of importance there that was under time stasis.
“Great plan, Ulrix. Our scientists predicted that this planet is going to shift and this place will be covered in ice, so even if we can’t have it, it won’t be going anywhere,” Xule said to him in a hurry. There wasn’t much time left.
“That sounds like a plan to me,” Ulrix said and punched in the location as a laser blast struck the wall next to them.
“Step away from the panel if you value your life,” said the Dolrum captain. Ulrix only had to push one more button to complete the process, but backed away.
“So, this is where you kept Narbosaurus. Not a very fitting home for such a powerful force of nature,” she said as she walked forward on strange legs.
“No, it’s not but it’s better than—” Xule was cut off with a glance from her guard, with a blaster pointed at him.
“Open it up,” she said casually and Ulrix did as she asked. The capsule slid open with a hiss as the air pressure changed. The monster was barely visible in the ice, even now.
“So, you froze it. Good call, but we have to put it back because—” Xule charged the captain and punched her in the face, trying to grab the blaster away. The guard blasted him in the shoulder and he fell into the capsule. Taking ad
vantage of the chaos, Ulrix lunged forward and pushed the final button, and in the process sacrificed his most loyal crewmember to complete the ejection protocol.
The door closed with both of them inside. The capsule was drawn back inside and immediately ejected from the ship.
“No! What have you done!” she screamed as they both watched it float into space and quickly disappear.
“I forgot to turn on the tracking beacon,” Ulrix replied to her with a smile, “and I also didn’t give it a final destination. I’m sure Xule will understand if he ever gets thawed out.” Ulrix was willing to lose it all to the void of space rather than let anyone beat him. “You have no idea what you have done,” she said to him and continued. “Everyone back to the ship; we have to find that capsule no matter what it takes. Now!” she yelled, and she and the guards ran off back to their ship. Ulrix knew where it was going, but now if he ever went to look for it, he knew that they’d be watching. He knew he’d never see Xule or the monster again for the rest of his life.
Xule slammed against the door in a mad panic trying to escape, but he looked out the window only to realize the metal door was the only thing keeping him alive. This caused him to stop. He was alone in the universe with one of the most dangerous creatures he could imagine. Xule gazed out the tiny window and watched the two ships disappear at a high rate of speed. The temperature system was still intact. Xule’s capsule spun around; in the distance, he almost thought he could see the blue glow of his destination before everything went black as he froze, entering a state of suspended animation.
The silver capsule and its passengers traveled through the gulf of space, alone and avoiding all detection for an unknowable amount of time. It traveled passed the mysteries and titanic planets, being carefully guided by a computer with one singular purpose: To get to its final destination, a tiny blue planet in the distance.
It entered Earth’s atmosphere and began to burn as all things do. As programmed, the machine slowed down as it fell and landed perfectly. The capsule landed on a land already in the process of change. It was cold and dead; anything living here had long since abandoned it. Millions of years would pass on this planet and it, and everything around the stasis unit, would soon be covered with thick, nearly impenetrable layers of ice. It is here that the one of the greatest threats the universe had ever known would remain undisturbed and hidden.
